Investment group plans hybrid data center in Rancho Cordova

An investment group bought a building in Rancho Cordova to develop into a new hybrid data center.

Bill Minkle and partners are investing $15 million into upgrades to an existing 30,000 square foot building in Rancho Cordova to create Gold Data Center.

The project’s plans are with the city of Rancho Cordova for approvals, and it could be online by October.

The partners are already looking for second phase to this project, said Minkle, who is CEO of Tel­Axis Advisors LLC in Incline Village, Nev.

TelAxis is the listing agent for Gold Data Centers, and this Gold Data Center is envisioned as the first of potentially many more data centers, Minkle said.

Gold Data Center will be a hybrid in the fast-growing world of data centers. The idea is to lease out four different secure units to companies or agencies that need to expand their cloud or data service. The total data center space in the building will be about 14,000 square feet. There is even the possibility that a single user could take it all.

Data center capacity is being absorbed quickly by the market, he said.

A ready-made center should be attractive to companies who need data center space, but who don’t want to go through the difficulty and expense of setting one up.

Data centers are among the most expensive real estate to develop. The building and land are the least expensive part. Data centers have multiple redundant battery backups to instantly supply enormous electrical load. They also have massive air conditioning to keep all the computers, servers and routers cool. They also have on-site generators capable of running all the air conditioning and the computer components.

This little building has up to 3 megawatts of power available to it, Minkle said. The building at 10980 Gold Center Drive had previously been a data center.

The interest in the space has been strong, he said. It is getting increasingly difficult to build data centers for reasons such as access to power, the carrying load of a grid and clean-air requirements, he said. Many new centers are being required to pay for their own power substations, which is expensive.